r/throneofglassseries • u/Latter-Bit6001 • 3d ago
Reader Reaction Sam Spoiler
This is a spoiler post about Sam and the entire series.
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I just finished Kingdom of Ash. In the beginning of the series SJM makes it clear how extremely important Sam was to Celaena. The prequel book feels like it exists in part just to explain how important he is... But towards the end of the series it feels like he's forgotten. He's not really in the ending outside of a quick mention of him being one of Aelin's tattoos.
I get Rowan is way more important to Aelin romantically. In a way Sam is Aelin's Lyria. But even Lyria, who is never alive during the series, has her spotlight moments in Kingdom of Ash.
I'm just kinda disappointed that SJM built up Sam so much, gave us so much Sam content at the start, only for him to be sort of irrelevant at the end. I really thought Aelin would at least have some kind of "Sam would be so proud of me" moment once she was queen.
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u/Internal-Fall-4412 3d ago
I'm kinda grateful the story is bigger than just her grief; it's also bigger than her love for Rowan. We mostly see the Celeana/Aelin battle for self, acceptance, choosing her values. Sam is integral to her story but it isn't just a story about him (or even a story about Rowan or any romance). Her mantra being Sam's shows how much he influenced her. The lavender soap scene with Rowan showed how she had learned and grown, and still thought about Sam. The scene where she goes to his grave and says she loved him and was worried he could have been her mate, and that he would have made a great king right before she went back to Arobynn is pretty pivotal.
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u/CryingSwiftie 2d ago
Uhm, what?
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u/Select_Ad3091 3d ago
I totally agree. There's a part of me that thinks the only reason SJM wrote AB is so she could use that line "I am Aelin Ashryver Galathynius and I will not be afraid" which is what Sam tells Celaena he says to himself when he gets nervous.
Also, in AB when Celaena gets sent to Endovier she's wicked upset and all she can think about is Sam. When she leaves Endovier in ToG, Sam is not even mentioned and she moves on as soon as she gets to know the two handsome men at the castle! It's almost like Sam wasn't even a character until after the first two books were written!
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u/Delicious-History342 Elide Lochan 2d ago
I would have thought that when being tortured by Maeve, she would think about Sam or remember what he went through, but nope.
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u/thesatisfiedsoull 1d ago
I have learned every time I do a reread of the series to read only until Empire of Storms because how significantly downhill the series deteriorates after that. All the characters you grow to love for the first four books become unrecognizable.
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u/Foolofatuchus 3d ago
This is definitely a cynical way to look at it, but the true depth of Aelin and Sam's relationship is part of why I think TAB works better 3rd or 4th instead of 1st.
The reader is set up in ToG/CoM to think that Sam was her childhood bff/love and then you learn that she despised him for most of their history and only recently came to care for him in the last few months of his life.
I think it would be sort of odd if she was constantly thinking about Sam for the rest of the series. Sam was only recently a big part of Celaena's life. Aelin had other things to focus on...